Occupational Well-Being and Harmony: Remembering the Human Rhythm Beneath, Beyond, and Above Work | Part III
This multi-part Occupational Well-Being & Harmony reflection series explore the living rhythms beneath, beyond, and above work: the deeper pulses that shape how we live, experience, create, and contribute – back to life.
Part I explores the meaning of work, moves from work to occupation, traces from ancient cycles of labor and rest to fractured modern version of work–life balance, and invites a shift toward personal and occupational wholeness.
Part II dives into Occupational Well-Being and Occupational Harmony– how our daily rhythms, evolving needs, and the pandemic reshaped our relationship with purpose, rest, and a deeper freedom.
Part III looks through the science and academia lens – how the machinery of discovery can forget the discoverer, and why restoring individual well-being and harmony is essential for the next frontier of innovation.
Future parts will continue this flow, expanding into new domains of purpose, vocation, and technology, wherever the rhythm next leads.
Part III: The Science and Academia Lens – When Discovery Forgets the Discoverer
1. The Scientist’s Paradox
Earlier in Part II, we explored Occupational Well-Being and Harmony – closely related yet distinct dimensions, with Well-Being asking how well we are doing where we are, and Harmony asking whether where we are is in harmony with who we are.
Among the foundations of sustainable well-being, they are not luxuries, nor about perfection, but about living and contributing in ways that keep our human system whole, aligned with our own essence, rhythm, and soul. For when our occupations no longer nourish us, every other domain of life feels the echo.
Few places reveal this paradox more clearly than the world of science. Researchers – whose work centers on understanding life – often live at the edge of depletion themselves.
Academic systems built for stability rather than adaptability demand innovation on minimal support. The expectation to innovate, advance, publish, mentor, fund, and perform can stretch a single person across multiple lifetimes of responsibility.
Chronic mismatches between individuals and their environments – in values, workload, or autonomy – have been shown to drive burnout and emotional exhaustion (Maslach & Leiter, 2016). Yet this is not only a scientific issue but a deeply human one.
When the system forgets the scientist, it forgets that discovery itself depends on vitality.
2. The Rhythms of Scientific Life
The rhythm of scientific life can be relentless: what reports as forty hours often becomes seventy or eighty. Long experimental days, late-night analyses, back-to-back meetings, deadlines, proposals, manuscripts, project administrations – all while juggling personal needs, family responsibilities, and the invisible “labor” of care.
The pandemic, ironically, offered a pause – a glimpse of alternative rhythms.
Like in other professions, remote “work” offered unexpected freedoms to scientists too, small yet impactful: daylight, lunch walks, meals shared with family instead of mindlessly swallowing food at desks or skipping meals altogether, more presence with children or pets.
For some, solitude became fertile – focus, reflection and creativity returned. For others, it revealed loneliness and the ache for human connection. Some missed the hum of shared spaces, the hallway serendipity, those spontaneous office-door exchanges that so often spark new research ideas and directions.
But one truth became clear for scientists too: science, like people, thrives in diversity.
There is no single structure that fits all – only those that either support or suppress the human rhythm.
3. The Systemic Strain
While academia adapted to hybrid or remote models, the machinery remains largely unchanged.
Researchers are still asked to build palaces of innovation with studio budgets, while institutions absorb half the funding in infrastructure, administration, and optics. Early-career investigators face an impossible equation: advance research, wear multiple hats, stay creative – with minimal support. Senior investigators experience fatigue as old systems fail to meet new needs.
The paradox deepens: we are asked to push the frontiers of human understanding – yet often at the expense of our own humanity.
This is not an indictment of science or academia itself, which continue to bring remarkable progress to illuminate and heal. Yet there are patterns within the system that can no longer be overlooked.
It is a reflection on the structures surrounding it, systems once designed for stability that now, paradoxically, stifle flexibility, creativity, and the sustainable well-being of those within them.
Recognizing this is not rejection; it’s reflection – an invitation to evolve the very environments that – shall - nurture discovery.
4. Personal Reflections – Zelda’s View
For Zelda, years in academia – as a PhD student, postdoc, and faculty member – meant countless seventy- to eighty-hour weeks, long experimental days, nights of data, deadlines, and self-sacrifice. Leading time-sensitive interventional studies with minimal support at times brought months of chronic sleep deprivation, burnout, exhaustion, and quiet or loud moments of questioning of purpose. Even amid meaningful, innovative research, one question kept returning: At what cost?
Conversations with colleagues across sectors echoed similar themes – industry professionals with stability but little breathing room, clinicians with security but emotional depletion. The misalignment is universal: between career structures and human rhythm, between outer success and inner coherence.
Plant Analogy
In her plants – both literal and metaphorical – Zelda observed the same lesson. Some thrived only when moved into larger pots, with enriched soil, or new light; others wilted when confined too long. Careers, too, are living systems. When the environment no longer supports growth, stagnation sets in. To flourish, sometimes we must change not only the soil but the planter itself
Sometimes the occupation must change; sometimes we must. What was once safe or stable may no longer meet evolving needs –new seeds, new soil, new light.
It all speaks to a wider fatigue within academia – the weight of multiple hats, the culture of overextension in “service” of research, bounded by rigid structures that feel less flexible for some than for others, and a system that too often forgets the very humans driving the discovery forward.
For scientists, perhaps the lesson is this: science and self-discovery meet where reflection begins. In the willingness to question not only what we study, but how we live while studying it.
5. Dr. Mike X. Cohen’s Story: When a Fellow Scientist Spoke the Words Many Felt
While reflecting on Occupational Well-being and Harmony pieces, and writing more regularly, Zelda came across a deeply authentic post by a fellow scientist, Dr. Mike X. Cohen, who had recently left academia and neuroscience. It felt like synchronicity, a mirror appearing at just the right moment.
In his essay, “Why I Left Academia and Neuroscience” , Dr. Cohen describes both professional and personal reasons behind that choice with honesty and flow. He was a very successful PhD, postdoc, and faculty member – a tenured associate professor at the Donders Institute in the Netherlands. On his way to becoming a full professor, he made the difficult decision to step away. He spoke not of failure, but of freedom – leaving to rediscover creativity, purpose, and presence. Dr. Cohen now teaches full-time through his education platform: Sincxpress.
When Zelda read Dr. Cohen’s piece, she immediately thought about Occupational Well-Being and Harmony – and how critical it is for one’s occupation to meet not only external expectations and desires, but also deeper needs, values, and purpose.
Dr. Cohen’s reflections offer a vivid example of evolving alignment – how structures that once fit may no longer do so as our values, energy, and seasons of life shift.
In his essay, Dr. Cohen writes:
“There is no single reason why I left. There were lots of reasons, and not any one of them was strong enough to have made me quit on its own…
There are two collections of reasons why I quit, and I will discuss them both below. The collections overlap quite a bit, because I have never managed to make a strong distinction between my personal and professional lives....”
On professional reasons, he shares:
“Intellectual stimulation is one of my top life values. I used to get that from academia, but by the time I was faculty, the job became almost entirely devoid of intellectual stimulation…I had more and deeper intellectual stimulation as a PhD student and postdoc than as faculty. I increasingly felt like a manager, not a scientist.”
Zelda could relate to those feelings: the blurring of personal and professional lives, the weight of wearing too many hats, and perhaps the quiet disappointment and frustration of being a part-time manager instead of a full-time scientist.
Dr. Cohen continues:
“My ascent up the academic hierarchy was successful career-wise but offered no personal meaning or satisfaction…My field is spinning wheels with new data and new publications without new findings or conclusions.”
On personal reasons, he adds:
“I cannot explain or justify that feeling, except that the thought of doing the same research and publishing the same paper using different phrasing and slightly different analyses was just very existentially overwhelming…
This feeling intensified during the COVID work-from-home era... Every day was so predictable and repetitive... I went to the same market, ate the same food, did the same work… I even pooped at the same time each day…
The thought of doing exactly one thing with my entire adult life was just very depressing.
It took a decade for me to realize that was not the right life choice for me…
I can comfortably say now that spending the rest of my life in one space, in one city, in one country, with one professional pursuit, is just definitely not right for me.”
And later, he reflects:
“It used to be the case that academia provided most of my life values. But that was no longer the case…I started having a sneaking suspicion that if all of my research – all my publications, every data point I’ve ever collected and published – were suddenly erased from the universe, human civilization would be no worse off.
Curiously, I lost my passion for research and gained a new passion for teaching.”
His words reflect not disillusionment, but evolution – an awakening to new rhythms and values, as he writes:
“Each time doubt creeps in, I come back to the same conclusion:
My current lifestyle and career are what’s best for me personally, and the best way for me to have a positive impact and contribute value to people’s lives.”
When Zelda reached out to Dr. Cohen for permission to feature his reflections, he graciously shared additional insights for this piece:
“Many academics form part of their identity around their career and their research. Therefore, deciding to leave academia can be a difficult and deeply emotional experience. It certainly was for me.
I do not advise anyone to leave or to stay in academia. Instead, my advice is this:
Stay in academia if you’re convinced it’s the right path, and leave academia if you’re convinced you can find more personal and professional meaning in a different profession.”
Dr. Cohen’s story beautifully illustrates that occupational harmony isn’t static, rather a living dialogue between purpose and presence, between the scientist and the self.
6. Closing Reflections:
Science and research are among humanity’s highest pursuits – yet they, too, depend on the well-being of those who carry them forward.
Occupational Well-being and Harmony are not luxuries for scientists or professionals, they are essential for sustainable creation and for the next frontier of innovation.
🌊 Our Closing Invitation
As always, we invite you to pause, reflect, and share your thoughts – perhaps even notice what resonates within you as you read.
And certainly, this invitation is not to quit – but to pause for reflection, especially for those in the “Should I stay or should I go?” zone.
Zoom out and ask whether your occupation still serves your total well-being, and whether resonates with your evolving self.
Is it expanding or contracting you?
Does it feed only the finances and mind, or also the lifestyle, body, heart, soul, joy, and consciousness?
Do you embrace occupational well-being and harmony?
🌿 Synchronicity and What Comes Next
As synchronicities continue to unfold, and both new and familiar connections reemerge, we’ll extend this series into future reflections – exploring purpose, vocation, technology, AI, and wherever the rhythm next leads, while continuing to explore other dimensions of the Yildiz Oceanic Well-Being frameworks.
Recently, Zelda attended a memorial service, and also visited her PhD mentor’s grave (twice!) – moments that stirred new reflections on mentorship, life and death cycle, and the evolving nature of purpose. Those stories will follow soon, too.
Until next time...
May your personal and occupational life move in rhythm, in well-being, and in harmony.
– With care 🌊
Written by Zelda – Dr. Selda Yildiz, in reflective dialogue with her AI muse, Amea.
Guest insights appear with permission and attribution.
© 2025 Selda Yildiz | Yildiz Oceanic Well-Being | All rights reserved.
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✨ Disclaimer: This post is for general educational purposes only. It is not medical advice, nor a substitute for professional consultation, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have concerns about your health, please seek guidance from a qualified healthcare professional.
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